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While most of you are freezing to death, we had summer this weekend in California! We headed to the beach, along with everyone else. Once we were there, there was much fun to be had. Poet had a grand time chasing her toy in the sand, and we had a nice long walk on the bike trail that goes on the coast. We found a pizza place at the end of the trail, thank goodness, because we were starving (Poet loves pizza).

Who’s tuning in to the SNL anniversary show? The internets tells me it’s really good. I’ll probably watch it in like 3 weeks, because it takes me forever to do anything. Let me know what you thought of it.

Tomorrow is one of my favorite holidays, Presidents Day. As an aside, because I love grammar, i looked up the correct spelling. Google results were mixed. i went with the most likely, and the one i believe is correct, candidate. I’ll stop before this turns into a grammar blog! Anyhoo…why do I love Presidents Day? Because it’s a day off work (duh) and not everyone has it off. So you can go out into the world and see this strange place with empty roads and stores and no lines. It’s this wonderful world where I don’t want to commit homicide within 3 seconds of leaving my house. Too bad you have to be retired to enjoy such a universe. Except for Presidents Day. It’s like spending an afternoon in a unicorn garden.

I hope you have tomorrow off and get to sleep in. Just stay out of my way on the roads!

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Sorry for the long hiatus. There has been a lot of cheeze eating going on around here! Seriously, life has just been busy! But after a nice long sleep last night (thank you, beer walk ) I’m up for a little blogging. I believe we left off with the editor-in-chief scheduled to get her hair did. Here’s a before and after of that.

Before

After

Isn’t she beautiful!

That was immediately followed by a visit from my old DMB buddies to see some Dave and Tim shows in Oaktown. A good time was had by all. We were up until 4 am playing Cards Against Humanity. 4 am! Don’t nobody got time for that! Here’s a little clip from the show, if you’re so inclined–Dancing Nancies.

In other news, the editor-in-chief and I went to Tahoe to visit our friend who just moved up there. We binged on Serial on the drive. If you have not listened to this podcast, what are you waiting for? It’s so good! I won’t reveal too much in case you haven’t listened. There’s just one thing that I can’t quite reconcile. Let me know in the comments what you think.

Since there is basically no snow in Tahoe and my oldism in my back was settled in, we went on a few hikes instead of skiing. As we were wandering around we stumbled upon a nude beach. With people on it. In January. In the buff. Go figure.

And no trip to Tahoe is complete without a trip to the dog water park–Poet’s favorite. She showed all those other dogs who was boss! After all that fun, here was what she felt like at the end of the day.

And here is one of our gracious hosts

And my last update is, I got a new couch for my new reading nook! Now i just need some other furniture. Thanks mom!

So with all this, where do my workouts stand? I am proud to say that I completed my January challenge (with a bonus week thrown in because, well, beer, bread, and cheez) and am so glad to be back to normal workouts.

I am not doing as well with water drinking. It’s been super busy at work and it’s hard to commit to the water when I’m not at my desk. But I’m going to recommit starting tomorrow! Someone did notice my DMB water bottle one day at least.

Hope you all had a fun a weekend.

Here’s to a healthy week.

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Well, I’ve been up to my ears in bread and cheese this weekend! I made bagels and pizza yesterday. The bagels I talked about in an earlier post, but I’ve been perfecting the recipe. Less garlic this time! I have a standard pizza I’ve been making for years, but i nabbed a King Arthur pizza box in an after Christmas sale and I tried that. Wow! Their dough is fantastic! I also added some pizza dough flavoring, which is basically a little extra cheesy and garlicky powder right in the dough. Yum. I ate way more than I should have, but it was wroth it! So needless to say, I’ve been struggling a little with putting the fork down. Next week will be a better week.

I have been good about the water thing though! i drank at least two full bottles a day every day last week. And I get in a lot of extra steps with all those extra trips to the bathroom, so bonus there. This morning I completed day 11 of the 15 day workout challenge. If you haven’t tried out Grokker yet, now is a good time, it’s free! One of the instructors is doing a 7 day HIIT challenge. Al the videos are about 20 minutes long and each one has been challenging so far. This series was perfect timing of the January challenge. On the linked page, do the videos in reverse, beginning with HIIT Arms.

How is your challenge coming along? If you fell off already, just get right back on!

Tomorrow my editor-in-chief/head food taster is getting a haircut. I’ll post before and after pictures.

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I hope 2015 finds everyone happy and healthy, and ready to put down the fork! As much as I love to eat, I think I’m ready to return to normal food consumption levels. I did a small trial run earlier this week to see how it was, and all in all, it wasn’t so bad. Monday is when the fun really starts.

January is alway the month of resolutions, including the famous, I’m going to lose weight. I hate that resolution because it’s too open ended and it doesn’t focus on your overall health, but if that’s your resolution, the breadandcheez team is here to encourage you and provide you reviews for the best DVDs for your time and money.

So whether you’re on a weight loss journey, are just looking to improve your overall health, or maybe you just need to recover from the holidays, I issue a few January challenges.

Like the December challenge, I’m going to to do 15 days of 15 extra minutes of workout time. I hope you’ll join me. If you’re just starting back into the workout scene after a break, just aim for 15 minutes–we all start somewhere. I already started the 15 day challenge at the end of December, but maybe I’ll do a few extra days in January to make up for some of these dozens of cookies. In 2015 I’m going to focus on strength training more, so I’m incorporating more strength training into my extra 15 minutes.

The second challenge is something I really need to work on. Drinking more water! I drink a ton of liquids, but I still feel dehydrated all the time (could have something to do with the alcohol in many of those liquids). So for the entire month of January, I’m going to fill the water bottle that sits all lonely and neglected on my desk twice a day and be sure to drink it all. Ideally, this will be little sips over the day, and not two giant chug sessions, but I’ll see what i can accomplish.

Happy New Year from the breadandcheez team. The editor-in-chief seems a little reluctant to have her photo taken. Must have been the excitement of Ryan Seacrest and the ball drop. (yeah the glass says 2007, sue me)

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I hope all of you have not binged as much as I have this week. I suspect I am not alone in the holiday binge as I witnessed several of my required readers taking down at least a dozen cookies per day. You know who you are. Put the cookie down.

Here is just one small glimpse into the terrifying world of what we eat on the holidays around here. This is half the table. There’s more that you can’t see. And that’s just the snack portion.

My sister got me the Jillian Michaels Body Revolution DVD set for Christmas, and I’m excited to try it out when I get home. Not only is it something new, but hopefully it will help erase some of my sins. Oh and there have been many, many sins. For example, I usually log at least 12,000 steps a day on my FitBit. This week it’s been more like 2000. Speaking of FitBits, did anyone get a new fitness tracker for the Holidays. Which one? How do you like it so far? If you have a FitBit, let me know and we can be FitBit friends.

January will be here soon enough and the fork will be put down. In the meantime, here’s another holiday favorite cookie. Lemon cookies. They were my grandmother’s favorite. Note to self, don’t skip the lemon rind.

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Well for the past several days at least two of my feedings a day have consisted exclusively of bread and cheese, so it’s been a good week. I hope your holiday celebrations, whatever they may be, are treating you well. In my family cookies are serious business. I ate at least 6 tonight, so I’m pretty proud of myself.

Before the eating season closes out, I want to share a super easy candy recipe I made this year, to rave reviews. If you aren’t familiar with the Brown Eyed Baker food blog, I highly recommend this site! She has a lot of great recipes, including this one for Slow Cooker Chocolate-Covered Peanut Clusters. This recipe is super easy to make and the chocolates are delicious. Sorry for the terrible picture.

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I’m preparing for the feats of strength later today. Glad i completed my December challenge! Hopefully all that kettle bell lifting has bulked me up for the fight.

How is everyone doing on the December challenge? I completed mine on Friday 12/19. I’m so glad I did it. While December has been filled with cookies and candy and eating, I feel like January will be a little less painful for just those extra 15 minutes a day. By the end of the challenge, the kettle bell felt a little lighter than when I started on December 1st.

So what are we all eating? Last night I went to my favorite journey to the 1970s, Big Jim’s. This is a restaurant down the street from my parents house, where the portions are big and the people are bigger! It was featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. Monday is spaghetti night. All you can eat for like $3.99. I got a refill, cuz when in Rome.

In addition to stuffing myself with pasta, we’ve been in indulging in sweets. For example, everyone’s favorite, the hershey’s kiss pretzels.

OK, off to fight my father!

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How is everyone coming with the challenge? I’m over 1/3 of the way done and I am glad for that! I completed day 6 this morning! Took off yesterday because, you know, Saturday. I’m on track to finish before my holiday travel! If you’ve fallen off course or haven’t started yet, now is the time to jump in. You still have plenty of time before the end of the month.

Unfortunately for me, the highlight of my day was my workout time. I am now officially one of those people who makes their dog’s food, and I spent Friday evening and today preparing two months of doggie meatloaf. The whole process is absolutely disgusting and involves boiling and picking whole chickens and digging my (gloved) hands in ground beef and other sundries. Have I mentioned I’m a vegetarian? Lest you think I’ve lost my mind, Poet needs to eat a special diet these days, and she refuses the gross prescription food. So every two months or so, I cook up my special blend of meat, veggies, and love and stock my freezer. Of course, she’d rather eat garlic naan and strawberries for every meal, but we don’t always get what we want.

Since the kitchen was already a mess, I decided it was time to dive into some holiday baking. I’ll save the specifics for later posts, but it was really hard for me to stop eating after having my test pieces. Since I’m giving most of it away as gifts, and don’t want to make a second batch, I controlled myself. Laziness will always win.

You can imagine what a disgusting, meaty mess I had to clean at the end of the day. Ugh. It was really tempting to let everything “soak” overnight, but we all know that it would be even worse tomorrow, so I powered through and got it all cleaned, even the gross stock pot.

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How is everyone coming with their December challenge? So far I am 2 for 2! This morning I had to set the alarm for 6 am to make sure I got my extra 15 minutes in. Ugh. It was awful.

Today was one of those days that reminded me of why I prefer to workout first thing in the morning. I was supposed to meet my friend in the gym at work at 4. Instead, I was stuck in a meeting that ran over by an entire hour! It’s cold and rainy here and tonight was a perfect night to just curl up on the couch with a book. But instead I powered through my workout after I got home and then took Poet for a walk during a break in the rain. Of course I locked myself out as well, to sum it all up. (I have a backup method of door unlocking for such situations)

Here are a few shots of Poet in her rain coat, which of course she hates:

Tomorrow I have to be at the dentist early, so I’ll have another early wakeup to get my extra 15 minutes in.

What time of day do you prefer to workout?

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I hope you all had a great extra long weekend! (and thank you delayed schedule so I am actually enjoying my last night off and not releasing software!) As we round third base not only into the work week, but into holiday (and eating) season, I offer up a December workout challenge. This time of year is busy with shopping, and baking, and traveling, and eating. It’s easy to blow off your workout for one reason or another. But if you don’t make you and your health a priority, no one else will.

I am committing to an extra 15 minutes of workout time for 15 days in December. For me, in order to achieve this goal, I will have to wake up earlier, and as you all know, that is a huge sacrifice for me. I will get in my 15 days before my holiday travel plans. I plan to tack on my favorite 15 minute workout to my regular workout. Maybe you’ve let your workouts fall by the wayside, well, now is a great time to commit to the December challenge and simply find 15 minutes a day to dedicate to you! In 15 days you’ll spend 3.75 extra hours in the gym. No one wants to do that all at once, but you have 15 minutes a day! My favorite 15 minute workout burns about 100 calories. That’s 1500 extra calories burned this month– not quite half a pound, so nothing to get too excited about, but it’s better than nothing. Now, let’s be realistic, you’ll eat way more than that, but maybe January will be a little less painful and hungry this year.

If you want to try the same workout I’m dong, you need to register for the grokker.com site, but it’s free. If you don’t want to sign up, below is the written version of the workout. I use an 18-lb kettle bell (except for the Russian twists, screw that, for those I use no weight). But if you don’t have a kettle bell you can use a regular weight, or even no weight at all, and still get a good workout. If you aren’t familiar with some of the moves, you can look them up on YouTube, or you know, just sign up for the free site and watch the video. There are lots of great workouts on there!

I read on the Shaun T Facebook that he’ll be putting up extra workouts in December too, so if you like Insanity, or want to try it, be sure to check for those. Just please be careful, some of the moves can be tough on your joints and back.

Leave a comment if you’ll join the December Challenge with me! Let me know how you plan to squeeze in your extra 15 minutes. And also let me know how you’ll spend your 15 minutes.

Workout details:

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3 Sets, each consisting of two exercises. Perform 10 reps of exercise #1, then 10 reps of exercise #2, then 9 reps of exercise #1, then 9 reps of exercise #2, and continue to alternate until you perform just one rep of each exercise. Then move on to the next set of exercises and perform those in the same pattern of alternating exercises and starting at 10 reps for each exercise, going down to one.